Movie corps buying up game publishers?

[marcusjm]

I just read an article about this in a Swedish game magazine.

Apparently the movie moghuls are tired of movies not making money and are now looking
at buying some cheap game publishers. They are dirt cheap due to the stock market crash.

So will we soon be buying games with Warner/Paramount labels instead of EA/UBI?

[Destructor]

I sure as hell hope not - remember how crappy your average movie to game game has been in the past? Now imagine most all titles being that bad.

[kronovan]

I sure as hell hope not - remember how crappy your average movie to game game has been in the past? Now imagine most all titles being that bad.

Yup, I have similar concerns. It would be OK if the movie corps would allow them creative independence, but I'm skeptical that they would be able to help themselves from interfering and screwing up the games. That industry is just too full of head-up-their-ass type personalities IMO. Some movie corps might able to pull it off, but when even LucasArts -a company with a previous good game publishing record- can't seem to get it right you really have to wonder.

[Sarkus]

Uhh, Warners already owns a dev studio. It's called Monolith. 

[kronovan]

Uhh, Warners already owns a dev studio. It's called Monolith. 

Yup, and the biggest outcome of the Warner acquisition was the craptastic Matrix Online; a game that was forced to market much too early. Luckily Monolith has managed to keep them at arms length since.

[marcusjm]

I am more surprised that they haven't done this before. Some claimed that
there is a lack of understanding among movie executives, but surely they could afford some consultants to explain the matter to them?